It's A Lovely Day Tomorrow
by Bryher
Summary: Everything that you do is based around being invisible, and it's hard to go back once you're through the other side.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **It's A Lovely Day Tomorrow

**Rating:** M

**Summary:** Everything that you do is based around being invisible, and it's hard to go back once you're through the other side.

**Author's Note:** This fiction is AU, and while it will make references to the previous series' of Primeval, it's assumed that Captain Becker survives the EMD attack by Patrick and that Danny is still looking for his brother... At least I hope that is what's going to happen in the next series.

There will be new characters in this fiction- please don't hesitate to tell me if you think that they're becoming Mary Sues or are just a bit too unbelievable- I won't know what to change if you don't tell me.

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><p><strong>Late September, 1940<strong>

Picking her way along the street, Harriet James gingerly edged her way around a bomb crater. The blown-out windows of the terraced houses gaped obscenely, the tattered curtains that moved in and out in the evening breeze a sad reminder of the lives once lived inside the now blackened walls. A child's bike lay on its side in one small front garden, front wheel gently rotating.

Keeping her head down, she wrapped her trench coat more firmly around herself and turned the corner onto another bombed-out road. The evening air was cool, and the sound of a radio playing a Gracie Fields record echoed down the road toward her.

A house at the end of the road caught her attention. Pausing in front of it, she tilted her head to one side. The house was like many others on the street- burnt and dilapidated, but someone had tried to sweep the front step, and the door had been propped up against the frame. The music was louder here- coming from the front window. Harriet paused, looking the house up and down- and saw in the front lower window the small and dirty face of a child. She smiled. 'Hullo,' she called. The boy ducked his head, vanishing from sight. She frowned for a moment, and then turned away. The bombings had made many people wary- the boy had probably been warned by his parents not to speak to strangers.

Without warning, a low moan whipped through the air like a gunshot, quickly rising to a chilling, high-pitched wail that sent a shudder through her chest. Looking up, Harriet could make out the distant shapes of bombers. Two men were running down the street toward her- one of them an ARP Warden.

'Run, Miss!' the Warden shouted. 'Get to the shelter!'

Harriet turned and ran, before stopping dead. She looked back up the street. The little boy stood on the front step of the bombed house, looking up at the sky. Dropping her bag, she sprinted back up the street, ignoring the shouts of the Warden. The boy jumped as she grabbed his arm, turning frightened blue eyes up to her own green ones. 'Are your Mummy and Daddy in there?' she shouted over the wail of the siren. The boy shook his head numbly.

Pulling him with her, Harriet dashed back along the road, pausing to grab her fallen bag. The Warden had vanished, and with a stab of fear she realised that she had no idea where the nearest shelter was. Dragging the boy after her, she ran down an alleyway between two houses. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she tried not to think about the drone of the planes which could be heard now above the alert.

The noise of the siren and the planes was tremendous and invasive, the deep thrum of the engines echoing in her ears. The boy's hand gripped her own and as she paused at the end of the alley and glanced at him, she realised that tears of sheer terror were streaming down his cheeks. The sound of anti-aircraft fire began to crack at intervals through the noise, booming across the city. She knelt, gripping both his shoulders and giving him a little shake. 'Listen to me, this is very important,' she yelled over the din. 'Where's the neares-'

Sound stopped.

Pulling the boy to her, she flung herself to the ground covering her head as the child screamed underneath her. Rubble flew overhead, and Harriet cried out as something struck her legs. Her ears were ringing and her head felt muzzy. Pushing herself up onto an elbow she managed to roll onto her back, pressing a hand to her chest with her eyes shut, breathing hard. The boy scrambled up, pulling at her arm. 'Come on,' he sobbed desperately. '_Come on_, Miss!'

'What?' Harriet said weakly. The boy sobbed harder, pulling at her coat. 'Look up!' he cried desperately. Harriet struggled to focus her swimming vision.

Above them, wedged at an angle between the buildings and hanging down into the alleyway was a German bomber. The terrified face of the pilot hung over the two of them as he pulled at his flight straps, fumbling to get out of his aircraft. Seeing them look up, the pilot abandoned his belt and reached for something else. The boy's yell of warning was cut off by the crack of a gunshot and Harriet's yelp as the pavement barely two feet from her head sprayed gravel, cutting open her right cheek.

Harriet scrambled for her bag, hand closing around the butt of the gun as she elbowed the boy back against the wall. Rolling flat on her back, she pointed the gun upward and fired. The pilot slumped forward, blood dripping through the shattered canopy over the cockpit. The boy stared at her, and then at the gun. 'What is that?' he whispered, reaching for the shining metal.

Harriet swore, pushing his hand away and shoving the gun back into her bag. Pushing herself up, she swore again when her legs buckled. Looking down, she felt sick as blood seeped through her trousers at the calf and stained the material dark. The boy grabbed her around the waist and helped her hobble from the alleyway, gun forgotten as a bomb blast echoed from a short distance away.

They staggered together along the road, Harriet grim-faced and the boy grey with fear until he pointed at a hump of sandbags only a few meters away. 'Look,' he shouted.

The ungainly pair shuffled across the road and into the doorway of the shelter. The door was shut fast. The boy began to pound on the door, screaming wordlessly as Harriet slumped to the floor by the doorway, her legs stinging and head swimming unpleasantly. The roar of the bombs and the screams of the siren filled her head, and she was only dimly aware of being hoisted under the shoulders and dragged into the dark. She stared out at the light of the street before the door swung shut, collapsing the blackness around her.

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><p>I'd very much appreciate a review!<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** It's A Lovely Day Tomorrow

**Rating:** M

**Summary: **Everything that you do is based around being invisible, and it's hard to go back once you're through the other side.

**Author's Note:** Recognisable people in this chapter. The first chapter was more of a prologue- the chapters from now on are probably going to be split (I say probably because I'm not sure what'll happen as it depends on writer's block!) between the OC Harriet and the Primeval group.

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><p>Abby Maitland was irritated. Hands on her hips, she glared down at the report on her desk from Lester that detailed the changes that needed to be made to the menagerie. The changes that she had told him needed to be made almost a month previously. It wasn't as though she wasn't pleased that the changes would be made- up to and including a new outside enclosure for the woolly mammoth that roamed mournfully in the dark pit below the main body of the ARC, but for Lester to pass a report through instead of just speaking to her about it hit a nerve.<p>

Since coming back through the anomaly, the changes to the ARC and the people that worked within it had frustrated her. No longer would matters be as simple as picking up the phone and having a conversation about things. Now, everything had to be checked, checked again, and then sent to an external evaluation officer who would attempt to work through and justify the proposed actions. More often than not, they couldn't be justified, and that was the frustrating thing. And that woolly mammoth had saved Lester's life once.

Blowing her hair out of her eyes, she reached for the phone and punched in the internal number that would take her call straight through to her boss.

The anomaly alarm sounded, the red warning light above the door portal flashing. With a sigh, Abby placed the handset back into the cradle and rubbed her hands over her eyes.

'Abby?' Becker stuck his head around the door. 'Can't you hear the alarm?'

'Yeah,' she muttered. 'I'm coming.'

She followed the handsome soldier at a jog, mentally running through the list of things that she would need in the field. The anomaly detector had been running at a rapid pace for the past week- three openings in the past two days alone, and the experience was tiring. She noted Becker's slight limp as he ran toward the control room. While he would never admit it, Becker's leg had been bothering him ever since he'd been bitten by the Therocephalian. His recent run in with Patrick hadn't done him any favours either.

The control room was flashing red, the alarms still sounding. Jess was typing furiously, eyes darting over the screens as she tried to work out where the anomaly was coming from.

Matt was already stood by the controls, watching the screens almost as closely as the FC. 'What do we know?' he asked after a moment.

'It isn't good news,' Jess said darkly. 'I think there are two anomalies which've opened at the same time, but I can't get a lock on either of them- one is near Canary Wharf and the other one is somewhere in Hyde Park. All I do know is that there are reports coming in of an unknown aircraft over Canary Wharf.'

'An aircraft?' Becker interjected, leaning over the back of Jess's chair to get a better look at the screen. 'What kind of aircraft? Can you find out whether we're dealing with Pterodactyls again?'

Jess's fingers flew over the keys, then paused. 'Apparently,' she said slowly, 'It's been identified as a Dornier Do 215.'

'Well what's that when it's washed?' snapped Matt.

'It's a World War Two German bomber aircraft,' Becker said with a frown. 'They were used during the Blitz over London.'

'Jess, are you sure?' Connor asked nervously, edging closer to the controls. 'Shall I have a look?' He stepped back with his hands raised as though to deflect the withering glare Jess bestowed on him.

Abby stood with her arms folded. 'What about the one in Hyde Park?'

More tapping from the keyboard. 'Nothing at the moment, but I've got a lock on it- it's by the Lancaster Gate,' Jess confirmed.

'Right,' Matt. 'Split up. Becker, Abby- you two take the bomber over Canary Wharf. See whether it's genuine or just a display before you try anything. Connor, you're with me. We need to get that anomaly shut as soon as possible.'

'I'll try to make radio contact with the bomber pilot,' Jess interjected. 'See if I can find out whether he knows what's happened.'

'Just don't mention the war!' Connor yelled over his shoulder as he dashed after Matt.

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><p>The first thing Harriet noticed was the smell. The air-raid shelters always stank. The smell of fear, urine, shit, sweat coupled with the hot air that was always the result of pushing hot bodies together in a confined space created the most god-awful stink.<p>

Pushing herself up onto her elbows, she willed her eyes to focus properly in the near-dark. Gingerly, she flexed her feet forward and back, wincing as she felt the cuts on the backs of her calves stretching and stinging. She raised a hand to her cheek, feeling the cuts from the gunshot shrapnel.

'H-here, Miss,' quavered a voice in the gloom. Harriet glanced to her right, seeing the boy from the house crouching against the dirt-wall beside her, holding a water bottle. He proffered it gingerly, as though she might bite.

She took the bottle with a nod, drinking deeply. The water was warm and unpleasant, but it eased the burning in her throat that was surely the after-effect from the bomb dust.

'What was that gun that you had, Miss?' the boy asked curiously, taking the water bottle back. 'Only, I never seen one like that before.'

Harriet grimaced. 'It's called a 'Chief's Special'. It's a 45- Smith and Wesson,' she said eventually, in a low voice. Pulling herself up into a sitting position, she looked around for her bag and found it beside her. Patting it carefully with one hand, she kept eye contact with the boy as her fingers made out the shape of the semi-automatic handgun.

'I didn't nick it!' the boy snapped defensively, wrapping his hands around his bony knees. 'I was raised better than that.'

'Keep your voice down,' Harriet growled as a family of six looked over, startled by the boy's tone. Harriet smiled at them placatingly, and was relieved when a dull thump shook the room, releasing dust and causing a ripple of fear to circle the packed shelter.

'Where are your parents?' Harriet asked bluntly. To her horror, the boy's eyes filled with tears. She patted him awkwardly on the shoulder as he used the back of a grubby sleeve to wipe his streaming nose and eyes.

'They're dead,' the boy whispered. 'Died in the first raid.'

Harriet sucked her teeth, looking around hopefully for the ARP Warden. 'Isn't there someone you could go to?' she asked after a moment. 'How come you weren't evacuated?'

'Didn't wanna go,' the boy said sulkily. 'Aint got anyone else.'

Harriet rubbed her eyes. This was the last thing she needed. It was bad enough that she'd used a semi-automatic handgun in front of the boy, but having the homelessness of an orphaned child on her conscience was pushing the envelope a little too far.

'What's your name?' she said eventually.

'Sam Eley. Who are you?'

She looked the boy over for a moment. He was a little older than she first realised- perhaps twelve, and very slim, with a shock of blonde hair and bright blue eyes that seemed far too old for his youthful face. He was crouched right in the corner, putting her between the rest of the room and himself with his hands wrapped around his knees. She met his eyes and saw the sharp intelligence there. Not _'What's your name?'_ but _'Who are you?'_, she thought. Wonderful.

'Harry James,' she said eventually.

Sam gave her an incredulous look. 'Harry's a boy's name.' he said doubtfully.

'Short for Harriet.'

They both looked upward as the all clear began to sound. Pushing herself up from the floor, Harry tried to dust herself off and gave up when she realised that the dirt all over her hands was simply being smeared all over the coat she was wearing. Picking up her bag, she limped toward the door and was startled when a skinny arm wrapped around her waist, taking some of her weight.

Sam pulled her arm over his shoulder determinedly, hobbling out with her into the sunlight. 'What are you doing?' Harry asked in an amused voice.

'You need to go to a hospital,' Sam replied in a voice that clearly suggested that she was stupid for even asking.

'I'm not going to a hospital,' Harry argued, pulling away from the boy. He glared at her, his hands on his bony hips. 'You're hurt,' he said in a matter-of-fact tone. 'When you're hurt, you go to hospital.'

'Well I'm not going,' Harry said peevishly. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. 'Where am I?' she asked with a bewildered expression. 'I used to know this city backwards.'

Sam scuffed his feet in the dirt. 'I don't know either,' he admitted.

Harry stared at him. 'Your house is over there,' she said, pointing toward the alleyway- where a crowd of people had gathered under the stricken bomber.

Seeing the crowd, she began to limp away in the other direction. Sam was instantly by her side, arm around her waist. 'It wasn't my house,' he murmured secretively. 'I was just living there.'

Harry said nothing, concentrating on getting away from the shot pilot. It wouldn't take long before someone realised he hadn't died as a result of the crash. Rounding the corner, she leant against the wall, sweat beading on her forehead.

'Can I live with you?' Sam said suddenly.

Harry stared at him. 'What?' The boy looked embarrassed, twisting his filthy jumper in his even dirtier hands. 'Can I live with you?' he repeated in a whisper.

Harry wiped a hand over her face. She couldn't say no. Not knowing that the boy had nowhere to go and nobody to take him in.

'For now,' she said firmly. 'But you can't stay long- I won't be here for much longer.' Sam smiled shyly, and Harry noticed for the first time that he had a beaming grin. 'I'll be going home soon,' she continued with a strength in her voice that she didn't feel. She began to walk stiffly. Sam ducked under her arm again.

'Where's home?' he asked after a moment. 'Is is close?'

'And yet so far,' Harry said grimly, her eyes fixed on the black-clad body lying in the road. The ARP warden.

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><p>Please review.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** It's A Lovely Day Tomorrow

**Rating:** M

**Summary:** Everything you do is based around being invisible, and it's hard to go back once you're on the other side.

**Author's Note:** See the translation of my (poor) German at the end...

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><p>'Oh mein Gott. <em>Oh mein Gott<em>! Hilf mir!'

'Schreien stoppen!' snapped Jess, her fingers flying over the keyboards as she tried to track the flight path of the Dornier using the CCTV cameras of the surrounding buildings. 'Fl- fly...what?' she stared confusedly at the Bing translation page she had pulled up. 'Fliegen sie z-zurück... ins licht!' she managed eventually.

'_Was?'_ screamed the stricken pilot. Jess winced as the plane narrowly missed a boat and banked back up into the sky.

'Das licht!' Jess yelled. '_Das licht,_ you stupid git!'

A quiet cough sounded over her shoulder. Jess froze, then turned guiltily to face the impassive face of James Lester.

'Considering he's been flying over what we can presume to be London in the Second World War, telling a person who has just found themselves in a totally alien and new surrounding to 'go towards the light' may be a little inflammatory, don't you think?' he said dryly. Nodding toward the screen, Lester frowned. 'It would appear that he's encountering some difficulties.'

Jess's attention snapped back to the screen. The bomber seemed to be jerking in mid air, banking sharply. Leaning forward, she flicked the radio to the ARC frequency. 'Becker?'

'I'm here Jess.'

'There's a problem- I've tried to speak to the pilot but he doesn't speak English and _he's going to crash!_' she finished in a rush. She watched open-mouthed as the bomber dipped low and nose-dived straight into the Thames. 'Oh my god,' she whispered as the camera zoomed in on the sinking craft.

'Becker,' she shouted into the radio, 'What just happened? Why did that happen?'

'I don't know,' crackled the Captain's voice over the radio. He sounded shaken, and Jess manoeuvred the cameras around until she could see Becker and Abby, stood together on the dockside. 'Jess...'

'I know. Sending backup and a recovery team now,' Jess finished quietly. She blew out a sigh, pushing her hair back out of her eyes. Lester watched her curiously as she sent the necessary people out to Becker and Abby, then checked in with Matt and Connor. 'Is there something you need, Sir?' she asked suddenly, giving him an inquisitive look.

Lester quirked an eyebrow as though to question why she was even concerned at his being at her station. 'No, no.' he replied mildly. 'Just... carry on.'

Jess watched his retreat back to his office with confusion. It wasn't often that Lester made her nervous. She could cope with his sarcastic remarks and the pointed looks, but his simply watching her made her feel... Inadequate. Being the youngest member of the team was tough at the best of times; often, she felt as though she was trying to play catch-up with the others in an attempt to show them that she wasn't just a glorified secretary. The bomb encounter-courtesy of Patrick, had at least gone some way to showing Becker that she wasn't entirely useless. Jess flushed slightly as she remembered the stoic Captain's reverently whispered praise moments after the bomb had been disabled. _You are truly brilliant._

Following the moving red circles that marked out the ARC staff, Jess watched as Matt and Connor's signals began to move back through Hyde Park and remembered, guiltily, that she had barely spoken to them.

Pressing the comm. button, she leant forward slightly, focussing on the screen. 'Matt?' The radio crackled for a moment before the Irishman's voice came through. 'We've got the anomaly closed. Connor reckoned it was from the Pliocene. Or at least that's what his fancy calculator says.'

Jess frowned. 'The Pliocene? Isn't that where Danny went?'

'Yeah, though there wasn't any sign of him- or Patrick.' Jess bit her lip as Danny's distraught face flashed in front of her. God knew what the ex-policeman had done to deserve Patrick as a brother. Matt's voice crackled once more in her ear; 'What happened to our German bomber?'

'Dead, I think,' Jess said slowly. 'He nose-dived into the Thames.' She heard the sharp intake of breath from the team leader, and pre-empted his question.

'I don't know what happened,' she said before he could speak. 'One moment he was flying and the next...' she shrugged her shoulders, tapping at the keyboard to bring back the images from the Wharf. Divers were sliding into the water, closely watched by Abby and Becker. 'The next he was in the water. I think the engine died.'

Matt and Connor's signals were moving quickly now, away from the anomaly site. 'We're on our way back- can you try and find out what happened to the other anomaly?'

'I'm working on it now,' Jess confirmed, tapping a finger thoughtfully against a key. She checked the anomaly coordinates and frowned. 'Matt,' she said suddenly.

'What's up Jess?'

'The anomaly report that came through was for an anomaly on the ground.' For a moment, there was silence.

'Are you sure?' Matt asked finally.

'I'm completely sure,' insisted Jess, furiously searching through the time-elapsed camera film. 'So if it was on the ground-'

'How did a bomber in flight manage to get through?' Connor finished. Jess could practically see the shared look between Matt and the technological wizard that was tapping on the other end of the earpiece. 'I'm looking at the co-ordinates now- you're right about it being in the ground, but I can't see any evidence of another one,' Connor announced. 'Can you check CCTV footage for the area around the anomaly coordinates and check whether something has come through?'

'I'll do that now,' Jess confirmed, already pulling up a range of different security systems on the screen.

In the car, Matt shot a glance over at Connor, who was tapping a finger to his lips with narrowed eyes. 'That's three anomalies all occurring at the same time,' he murmured. 'Two possibly in the same spot.'

'Do you think they were satellite anomalies?' Matt asked, eyes darting between the road ahead and the rear-view mirror.

Connor shook his head. 'No. If they were satellite anomalies they would all have to have been from the same historical point.'

'So all Pliocene or all Wartime?' Matt said with a frustrated sigh. 'And I thought that things couldn't get any worse after those anomalies opened up in the prison.'

'They'll get a hell of a lot worse if people start coming through,' Connor confirmed. He massaged his eyes wearily. 'Can you imagine trying to explain to someone that they've travelled through time?'

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><p>Moving quietly, Harry lifted a blanket from the end of the iron bedposts and curled up in a wing-backed chair, shuffling until she was comfortable. The wireless in the corner was on low, offsetting the erratic beat of rain on the windowpanes.<p>

In the bed on the far side of the room, Sam slept deeply, his face scrubbed clean and his hair damp from the bath she had forced him to take. Even in sleep the boy looked worried, his face set into a deep frown. Leaning her head back in the chair, Harry closed her eyes and willed sleep to come.

After a moment, she opened her eyes again and reached down the side of the chair to her bag. Pulling the gun out, she examined it in the half-light brought by the dim lamp. She had been foolish to use the gun in front of Sam- even more foolish to have used it to kill. There was no chance that she would be able to recover the bullet, and that was the thought that made a chill run through her. If someone found the bullet... she closed her eyes, sliding her fingers along the cool barrel before tucking it into the bag once more.

She would have to deal with that if the situation arose.

Dropping the bag to the floor, Harry settled back in the chair and pulled the blanket tighter. There were lots of things that she had to 'deal with'. Her eyes roamed the walls, one of which was cracked from floor to ceiling by a bomb blast that had brought down the house next door. This small room and the kitchen that went with it were all that she had, and that was only because she had lied and told the landlord that the woman who had been here before was her sister.

Harry sniffed quietly, swiftly wiping away tears that spilled down her cheeks and tried to ignore the feeling of shame that welled up. She'd found the address in the organiser of a woman who had been caught in a raid and had died in a shop doorway. Harry had been running, alone and frightened when she had found her unknowing benefactor by falling into the same doorway. She remembered darkly her own scream as the stranger's sightless eyes had shone in the light of incendiary bombs.

Harry wiped her cheeks again and gritted her teeth. Rising, she padded softly over to the wireless and switched it off, fingers idly stroking over the walnut casing. Turning the light off, she turned and pulled apart the blackout curtains and stared out into the darkness of wartime London. Only the moonlight lit the city, which seemed to squat, sulking under the shadow of the deathly raids. Barrage balloons drifted silently in the sky like curiously shaped clouds.

'Soon,' she whispered to herself. 'Soon.'

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><p>Please review<p>

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><p><strong>German translations:<strong>

'_Oh mein Gott. Oh mein Gott! Hilf mir!'_ – 'Oh my God. Oh my God! Help me!'

'_Schreien stoppen!'- _'Stop shouting!'

'_Fliegen sie z-zurück... ins licht!_' – 'Fly into the light!'

'_Das licht!'_- 'The light!'


End file.
